LG Optimus 4X HD Review By 3G.co.uk

The LG Optimus 4X HD features a sharp, bright 4.7in feature, and the quad-core chip can handle any app or game. But the battery life and camera disappoint

Full Review

Specifications

Full Review

LG has certainly been busy with its handset launches – we’ve already reviewed three fashion handsets, including the Optimus L3, L5 and L7 along with the designer Prada Phone 3.0. And now there’s the Optimus 4X HD, which has a sharp 4.7in display.

Looking good

If you’re familiar with the LG ranges, you’ll notice that the 4X looks very like the Optimus L7, which was released last month. It has the same slim design, with rectangular body, metallic edges and glass-covered front. Turn it over and the back looks the same too – its soft texture is good to hold. Take off the back to gain access to the battery, SIM and microSD.

The design looks sleek, but it is what’s under the hood that is particularly interesting. The clue’s in the name – the 4X has a quad-core chip, which means it boasts the same power as the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S II. That means you’ll be able to run any app or game with no lag whatsoever. Mind you, it does get a bit hot when you put it under pressure.

Battery life is disappointing – okay in standby mode there is no drain on the juice at all, but if you’re a regular user you’ll be charging every day, unless you turn off most of the features and set display brightness at low. And if you’re playing games or watching movies, that figure drops drastically – expect to lose power after only five hours of TV watching, and two or three hours of full-on 3D games playing. Even using Wi-Fi for surfing the net sees power drop far quicker than we’d like.

There is a power saver mode, though, which turns off features and drops display brightness, but that’s no help when you’re gaming or viewing video – if battery life is an issue, you ought to pick the HTC One X or Samsung Galaxy S III instead.

Speaking of gaming - games look excellent on the super sharp display. Images appear crisp, whether you’re watching video or browsing through your photo library. The display is bright, so it’s easily read outdoors, and great viewing angles ensure you and a friend can watch a film together should you wish,

Larger handsets like this are just made for surfing the net – the screen is expansive and responsive, which makes it easy to scroll your way around websites, and being so sharp makes sure you can zoom in to read text. You’ll need to download Flash from the Google Play store to be able to stream video from the likes of the BBC’s iPlayer. We did experience the odd crash when we did this though…

Snap-unhappy

Another area in which the 4X HD can’t compete with the Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One handsets is the camera. Its an eight-megapixel model but disappoints in a number of ways – the autofocus, for instance, fails to do its job and images come out blurred. It is possible to focus by tapping on the display, but even so, after waiting a couple of seconds for autofocus to fix on, you still don’t always get a sharp image. Low-light conditions result in almost black snaps, and the flash manages to overexpose anything that is 10ft or closer.

You get the standard smartphone features – it’s possible to alter resolution, choose a number of settings when taking evening pictures, landscapes and so on, and toggle flash on and off. Burst mode is missing, but you can grab HD video. Video clips looked okay on a monitor, but the mic isn’t terribly efficient. If you want to make Skype calls there’s a 1.3 megapixel front-facing snapper.

Instant gratification

The good news is that Android Ice Cream sandwich comes pre-loaded, and the user interface proves slick and smooth – you can choose which shortcuts to pop on the bottom of the desktop screen (pick up to five), plus you can add toggles for NFC, GPS, Wi-Fi and some other features. There are icons for texts, phonebooks, emails and the snapper that can be accessed from the lock screen. It doesn’t seem as if you can choose which shortcuts these are though…

Because the display is so big, the onscreen keyboard makes emailing and texting easy. Each key features alternative symbols in the corner – simply hold your digit on the key and the relevant punctuation or number will be typed – it saves having to switch between keyboards. Autocorrect is decent too, good news for fast typists. The only problem we did have was that we accidentally quit apps when we were actually trying to hit the space bar.

3G's conclusion

We expected good things from the LG Optimus 4X HD, one of the first of the large quad-core handsets to be announced at the end of 2011. Its display is big, bright and crisp and perfect for watching films and browsing the net, while the quad-core chip can cope with most 3D games and apps. It’s just a shame that battery life and the mediocre camera are disappointing – especially at this price.